The visit of Booker Prize winning author Salman Rushdie to Kolkata where he was expected to participate in the promotion for Deepa Mehta’s film Midnight’s Children on Wednesday was abandoned apparently due to security reasons as the Mamata Banerjee government did not want to take risk of a law and order trouble amidst protests by Muslim organisations. The movie is an adaptation of Rushdie’s award-winning novel of the same name. This was the second time that the famous author’s visit was cancelled at the last moment in an Indian city. Strong protests by Muslim organisations had kept him away from the Jaipur Literature Festival in January 2012.
His visit with Ms Mehta and actor Rahul Bose, included a day’s stay in the city featuring his film promotion and a news conference. Anticipating his arrival in the morning, a group of around 100 members of two Muslim organisations staged demonstration with posters and shoes at the Kolkata airport.
All India Minority Forum leader Idris Ali who had earlier spearheaded protests against Bangladeshi author Tasleema Nasreen’s book said, “We will not allow him here. Muslims all over the world hate him. We protested under the banner of the group Milli Ittehad Parishad.” The demonstration, however, ended soon.
General secretary of All Bengal Minority Youth Federation Kamruzzaman said, “We withdrew the protest after the authorities assured us that Rushdie’s visit had been cancelled.” Mr Ali added, “I express my gratitude to the West Bengal government for giving an ear to us.”
Ms Mehta cancelled her visit too. Sources revealed that officers of the Central and state security agencies huddled into a risk-analysis soon after learning of Mr Rushdie’s visit to the city. Asked if the special branch of the Kolkata police objected to the author’s visit, joint commissioner of police (intelligence) Partha Sarathi Ghosh said, “We had only wanted to know from the Kolkata Book Fair’s organisers whether they had invited Mr Rushdie to the event or not. But they said that they did not invite him.”